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This article was written on 03 Sep 2016, and is filled under Uncategorised.

A letter to the EU

Hello.

You don’t know me, but I’d like to make you an offer.

Please, please honour me with EU citizenship. I have no family connections that would allow me to claim citizenship in another European state and I work as a copywriter in my native language, so my options are very limited. When my country decides that it wants to trigger Article 50, I will have just two years to try and move my life overseas, a task which presently seems impossible. As I write off for jobs in mainland Europe more in hope than expectation, I find that my nationality counts against me and I realise that prospective employers may well be discounting me.

Were you to consider granting British citizens some kind of EU citizenship you would find that you would be deluged with responses, precisely because we want to work in the EU, to move around in the EU and to live our lives in the EU. I would be one of the people who applied, again more in hope than expectation, because those things are important to me and because I can, still, just about see a future where I don’t live on a rock in the North Sea with racists, xenophobes and have a much more exciting and expansive time of it.

By extending EU citizenship to us, you send a message that you have not forgotten about the British EU citizens who are still loyal to the EU and still believe that we have hopes and dreams, too, that are not represented by our domestic politicians.

I would be prepared to bank in the EU, to pay taxes in the EU and to do whatever is required of me to prove that I am a fit recipient of EU citizenship. My desire for this is such that I don’t even want to vote in European elections. Instead, I want some demonstration that I am still, as I presently understand the term, European, and that I am still right to dream of something other than what 51% of the British voting public has decided for me.

This letter began as I said please. So I will say it again. Please, please, please.